Why are Americans distorting the reality of Canada’s most prized social program?
By Alastair Rickard for the Toronto Star – Earlier this year, before the political battle over health-care reform in the U.S. reached its current fever pitch, I was in Tuscaloosa answering questions from University of Alabama business students. They were interested in my views, as a Canadian and as a former insurance company executive, about what they had been told about the Canadian health-care system. My impression was that much of what they had heard had been the sort of right-wing, special interest nonsense that has subsequently characterized the health-care reform debate in the United States. I told them that Canadians value their single-payer government health-care system so strongly that any change that appears to pose a threat to it is the third rail of Canadian politics; that most Canadians value the system’s quality of care; and that although many do still complain about wait times to see specialists in certain fields, government has moved to address this issue in recent year
